1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems for monitoring call conditions on a telecommunications network. Specifically, a system is described for reporting network events, including alarms and other network conditions affecting a customer's telecommunication service, directly to a customer.
2. Related Art
Major customers of telecommunications services have in the past relied upon their telecommunications carrier to identify network problems and take corrective measures. The common carrier conducts a continuous fault monitoring process throughout its network to identify, locate and correct conditions which adversely affect voice and data lines.
Common carriers generally make fault information (information regarding network events) available. For example, fault information for data network events is presently available from the DIGINET.RTM. forwarding facility of the MCI Corporation. Similarly, MCI's TANDEM.RTM. and SENTRY.RTM. forwarding facilities provide fault information for voice network events. Various leased services are monitored for events including, for example, 800 service dedicated circuit alarms, 900 service dedicated circuit alarms, Prism.RTM. dedicated circuit alarms, Vision.RTM. dedicated circuit alarms, VNET (MCI virtual private network) service dedicated circuit alarms, ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) service dedicated circuit alarms, DDS/DS0 (MCI dedicated data service) circuit alarms and TDS (MCI terrestrial data service) 1.5 and 45 circuit alarms.
Customers of leased facilities can take corrective measures to mitigate faults that occur over the leased services. For example, if a particular trunk or trunk group becomes unusable due to a reported fault, the customer can route calls to other facilities until the affected lines are cleared of their faults. If the customer detects the problem before the carrier, the customer can also send a service request to the carrier.
However, customers cannot react to mitigate problems associated with network alarms and faults unless they are promptly informed of these events. The delivery of information relating to these service problems to the department or location within a customer's organization that is responsible for managing their leased facilities would permit the customer to analyze various fault conditions and traffic patterns within their portion of the network and manage these facilities more economically.
Providing individual telecommunications management information to telecommunications customers is complicated by the fact that different customers lease different types of services. Effective fault management must be configured to match the particular services that individual customers lease, precluding a "one size fits all" solution to network management.
What is needed is a way to provide to individual customers of leased telecommunications services information pertaining to facility performance.
What is further needed is a way to provide real time-custom event views specific to the services leased by a telecommunications customer.